Be Careful of the Curse
by tore-my-yellow-dress
Summary: Sometimes things happen that aren't supposed to happen. Or that fic where Red is an Alpha and Lizzie is an Omega that's lived her entire life doubting herself, believing there's something wrong with her chemical composition, and then Red's presence makes her go into her first heat. Lizzington. A/B/O dynamics.
1. Chapter 1

/

_A/N- First and foremost: if you've never heard of Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics when applied to fanfiction, and only have the vague idea the vocabulary concerns wolves, you should look that up immediately or be seriously forewarned that this is not your average trope. Dear reader: either this fic is going to be the discovering of a kink you never realized you had, or this fic is going to be the weirdest shit you'll ever read._

_I've had this sitting on my hard drive since I was inspired by the infamous, "What do you really want?" scene, and only now am I giving it up because, quite frankly, I think my fellow Lizzington shippers could be down with this universe. This took a lot of courage. Please, no flames. Disclaimed. _

_And on with the fic._

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Somebody once told her, "Things that shouldn't happen, _happen_."

That's a lie.

It wasn't_ her_ the doctor had told. It had been Sam.

Lizzie had senselessly smacked the clear, plastic soles of her shoes together where they hung under her pinpointed gaze, fingers dug into the leather of the examination table out of the discomfort, the ache in her skull, the pounding of her heart. Her father and Doctor Stevens spoke as if she was not in the room. She'll remember, years later, that it was a Tuesday in June, and she had not yet turned eleven.

"It's an anomaly in the basic genetic code," the doctor explained somberly, "likely due to trauma of some kind. We often see it with foster children. You'd mentioned she's—

"She doesn't remember any of what happened," Sam cut in weakly.

"It doesn't really matter," was the doctor's quick, resigned reply. "The discourse caused a chain reaction of hormonal imbalances. Even if she hasn't gone through puberty yet, the likelihood of her regaining chemical stability is slim. I'm uncertain she'll ever experience estrus."

Sam smothered an anguished grunt by splaying a palm over his mouth.

Lizzie didn't understand, until Sam's realization came, so desperately quiet; as if speaking it low enough could retract the truth's existence.

"She's an Omega. If she never has heats, she'll never have—

"Yes," the other man confirmed so that Sam wouldn't have to continue.

"It will be incredibly difficult for Elizabeth to conceive as an adult Omega."

/

When they sat down for dinner that night, the cicadas buzzing and Nebraska's balmy air leaking through the tiny house, Lizzie had asked her father if this meant she could be exempt from all the stupid Alpha boys that chased the pretty Omega girls in middle school on television shows. "I want the scent-maskers, Dad."

Sam chewed a roasted carrot thoughtfully. "You shouldn't feel pressured, Butterball. You're ten-years-old, for Pete's sake."

"I know, I know. But I don't," Liz paused, dipping her chin in embarrassment. "I don't want people to ask me questions about it anymore. They look at me like I'm a freak because they can't even tell if I'm a Beta or an Omega."

Her father's cutlery came down on the table with a loud clatter.

"You're not a freak, Elizabeth. You hear me? Look at me."

She did, eyes watering over the pot roast and the sentiment, as she was too young to think about the babies she wouldn't have. She was a baby, in all her bony elbows and soft cheeks. She was too young for this, and Sam leaned in, cuffing her chin in his warm, wide hand.

Sam told her, "I wouldn't change one single hair on your head."

Lizzie believed him.

/

Three days into sixth grade though, after the first call home from school about an altercation in the hallway- Tommy Rivers telling her, "you smell gross" and Lizzie punching him in the face in response- Lizzie found a purple box on the dresser in her room. No words exchanged, but that didn't stop her from reading the instructions carefully in the dim, yellow light of the bathroom, didn't stop her from utilizing the product with fervor.

Sam never wanted her to change, really.

It's just easier, Lizzie realizes, to never have to think about it.

/

It's like her scar: in plain sight, but rarely spoken about.

People hardly ask, after that.

/

Andrew Miller, a gangly, brown-eyed Beta, took her virginity in the backseat of his pickup truck a few weeks shy of graduation, his mouth hungry for her collarbone, itching to reinvent the hicky he'd left on her right shoulder the day before last. The bluish hue black in the darkness, the moans like a hymn. He's the only lover that ever comments. Sometime after, when the fluids had dried, he'd told her, very suddenly, "You taste sweeter, you know."

Lizzie had blinked at him hazily.

"You're sweeter than any Beta could ever be."

A pregnant pause had passed before she'd gathered the nerve to respond, and when she had, it'd been laced with bitter tang, with sadness.

"Maybe," she agreed. "Guess it's too bad I don't get wet like one, huh?"

/

The reality is:

The closet is a dark home.

She keeps close to Betas and all her lovers are of the kin because it's easier to pretend everything is normal when she's with individuals that don't know the gush, don't know the thickening, don't know the scent, and the hold. Elizabeth Scott finds herself driven to the boys with the buffed chests and easy swaggers, nature dictates it, but she breathes in their scent and smells what they're capable of and knows, deep within her, that she's wrong to want it when she'll never be able to accept it. Somehow, her body knows this. They are right, and she, she is wrong. There's something the matter with her, and nature dictates this inferiority, this needy purge, and so she sticks to the easier kind, and she thinks she sleeps better for it.

/

She goes into a career most Omegas shy away from for a reason.

/

Like snow in April, or Halloween decorations on the shelves in August—

Lizzie _happens._

.

.

.

.

.

/

The next time it causes her grievance is when she's thirty and Tom is by her side in another sterilized doctor's office, and they're discussing with her the options for having children. She could push it; could leave behind the daily doses of masker to receive injections, so many drugs, enough that she'd bloat and swell, and maybe, just maybe, it would invoke a heat.

But Tom is a Beta, so she'd have to undergo more procedures for it to take anyway, and Jesus fucking Christ, she's so not one to beat a horse with a stick. Tom doesn't push her, luckily.

They decide upon adoption.

/

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.

.

.

.

Lizzie will never forget the way it felt.

She hadn't made eye contact for a reason, wanted to keep things as professional as theoretically possible for all the helicopter and meeting with a covert branch of the Bureau could offer, but she'll never forget striding across the open space as if it was a hunting ground, and before she even met his eyes, she could feel it in her bones. A thrum, a live wire, like a machine buzzing from a switch being hit, whirring to life, mechanical, physical.

Lizzie will never forget the scent.

All through the halls where he'd been led, coating as a mist. Overbearing every other Alpha; Director Cooper, the other agent. How could they stand it?

She'd breathed deep, evenly, trying to come to grips, attempting to maintain professional, Beta, neutral, unaffected, not easily manipulated, granite, tower, strong hold, unbreakable—

Even as her heart climbed into her mouth and the distance became fewer, and she slid into the chair and swallowed, and here, here is where it ends and it begins because Lizzie looked up and—

Lizzie will never forget the way it felt:

It was not a sudden click into place, but a terrible twisting sensation deep within the pit of her, metallic in her mouth, and Lizzie met Raymond Reddington's eyes for the first time, could smell his signature billowing around her despite the glass crate, and it's funny, because Lizzie had never understood the call before. She'd never understood, but in that moment, Lizzie felt the Omega within her, the thing she's never been attuned with, the thing she's never wanted to understand.

The Omega just—

"Agent Keen, what a pleasure."

— _sings. _

/

Okay, but for all intents and purposes; may Jesus, Cooper, and Ressler be her witness, Elizabeth Keen keeps her fucking _cool. _

Because at some point even the animalistic has its end, and there's a pulling sensation in her chest at the realization, at the knowledge, that Raymond Reddington means something to her, and she doesn't know how, and she doesn't know why. He's somebody to her, and she knows it. It's instinctual. It's true. Lizzie knows this and trusts this even if she sure as hell doesn't trust him and his mental games and she's barely had his name in her mouth three hours.

/

But then _Tom._

Tom and blood and clarity, strong enough to combat this song, strong enough to ebb the flow of the unkempt rage and make her a tornado with skin, strong enough to make her hunt.

_Hunt._

/

She shoves a pen into his neck and it's a little like shoving an arrowhead into a lion's throat, knowing the beast and feeling it heave beneath sweaty palms, and her teeth are a grinding at the root, everything is screeching and she can feel his power beneath her hands, can feel her take hold of that power. Lizzie makes him tell her things, and inhales his scent like a dying woman, and she's so close to him, she's so close.

(Lizzie could have let him bleed out, but the Omega within her would have never let him lose more than a pint or two.)

.

.

.

.

.

"You're a monster," she still says, even though the feeling of his heavy, sturdy hand on her head, soothing, soothing her because he'd saved her, he'd saved her and now he could claim her but instead he'd had to go and kill somebody in cold blood, kill, killer.

She looks at him and imagines blood dripping from his lips.

Her flesh between his teeth.

/

They don't change because of their natures, not really.

It's just a fire burning within them, between them; an added layer of kerosene in their eyes and mouths and don't think for one second it makes things easier when it comes to trust and tedious half-truths because the truth is Lizzie still learns to trust him and then he frames Tom, and—

/

"Have you ever tried inducing things biblically?"

He asks her this at a café in midtown. It's nonchalant, and she spikes at that. The entire line of questioning is inappropriate, and with all that's happened it's inconsiderate and off limits to him especially, and—

"What do you think?" she bites back, narrowing her eyes.

He shrugs, looking down at some documents.

"I think your husband is a little bland for your taste."

"You don't know anything about my taste," Lizzie mutters.

Slowly, Red raises his head. Pointedly sniffs the air. Smiles as if he's inhaled fresh flowers.

Lizzie's back goes ramrod straight, because for the first time, he acknowledges the difference in biology, the pull. He meets her eyes directly, and the grin is absolutely carnivorous.

"I think I do."

She's frozen in place, mouth parted, until he looks back down at the paper, continues like he hasn't just, like he hasn't—

"Number forty-three just so happens to have connections with—

/

And then her father dies and—

/

And then Anslo Garrick, and—

He comes out of the cage for her. The monster comes out of the cage for her, and the Omega mewls softly in the dark, bloody mess.

/

Lizzie asks if he's her father because she can't find any other explanation for why he's in her veins.

/

.

.

.

.

.

He goes away.

This is where it all changes. He goes away, and it hurts. She never knew how hard it would be to lose a familiar Alpha until he goes away for months and she worries for him and she stays awake at night with Tom beside her in bed and she wants to throw her head back and scream, howl, wants to dig her nails into the sheets and call to him. One night, she dreams of him doing unimaginable things to her, and wakes up with slick between her legs.

It's the first time in her life it's ever happened to her, and this, this is how she knows she's becoming something more than she's ever been before.

She craves.

/

He comes back to her, but he smells like murder, and that makes it all the harder.

/

Madeleine Pratt is the most abrasive Alpha Elizabeth has ever crossed paths with, and she's never hated somebody so much from first blush. Red says, "singular talents" and the growl Lizzie emits is so soft she doesn't even realize she's doing it until she feels her jaw clatter.

/

Tom was supposed to be easy. Simple.

Losing Tom hurts more than she'd ever care to admit, but then Red doesn't need admissions, because he's there with a box that plays music like she knew when she was but a child, and he opens his arms and she realizes the meaning. She falls into him, really. Let's his being envelop her like warm milk and honey, and it's not sexual, far from. It's intimate, and she could live here, she could call this place home, and he holds her and rocks her and tells her it's going to be okay. He tells her it's going to be _okay_.

Lizzie believes it, but she doesn't turn around and press her lips to his and take because it's not right. There's a part of her that feels that something isn't right, and she wants to be wrong about this gut instinct.

But she's right.

She's so right, and everything ends up being so _wrong._

/

The Omega within her wants Red to explain.

But _Lizzie_ has this overwhelming conviction, the heartbreaking pivot, to never see his face again.

Because he killed—

She can't say it, but then she can, and he confirms it, and he doesn't fight her. He's passive and grave and it's not supposed to happen like this; he's not supposed to hurt her. Alpha equates to her protector, but he's not actually her Alpha yet, and she's not even technically an Omega in that sense— but he's not supposed to hurt her, and he's _killing _her.

He's destroying her. Betrayal makes her feel like she's _dying _and there's something _wrong, _there's something—

He's supposed to—

She needs him to explain, but he's a monster, and she's a monster for trusting him, for wanting him, and just like that Elizabeth shoves the Omegas deep into the dark closet as she can and she leaves Red sitting there and it hurts more than anything that he doesn't try to follow her.

She feels so wounded.

/

Once bitten, twice shy.

Suddenly Tom wants to kill her and Berlin is a person, and all of this is connected, and Tom has a gun to her head and Red, and Tom, and—

And Tom was never supposed to be difficult, but dragging his injured, bloody form down three flights of stairs and through the back alley is one of the hardest things she's ever done.

(Keeping Tom from Red makes her Omega _whine, _lying to Red burns, but she has to, she has to do this for herself, and nobody can stop her. Not even her own self.)

/

"When is this going to be over, huh?" Tom leers at her nastily, his face ashen.

Sloppy sutures in his side crusted and brown with days of neglect.

"I'm going to ask you again," Lizzie grimaces. "What do you know about Reddington?"

And suddenly, his face changes, something ugly taking hold.

"How would I not know the man fucking with my wife's scent?" Tom tosses his head, rolling his eyes. "My target, a target with hormonal defects, my pretend _wife_ starts giving off the chemical signatures of a goddamn sex fairy ready to shimmer, and you don't think I would know the son of a bitch responsible for putting her in such a state?"

Lizzie opens her mouth to respond, but he's crazed, eyes twinkling orbs of hate. "Has he mounted you yet? I bet he's just waiting until you start begging from the delirium of—

"You know that's not possible for me, Tom," Lizzie stops him from saying more, and it's not as sharp as it could be, but more weak and tremulous. Lizzie turns on her heel, brushing a hand over her forehead and closing her eyes. She regains composure.

"Let's try this again."

/

Here is a secret:

While Lizzie bickered and fussed at Red sending a boy with a sniper rifle to watch after her, the Omega inside her lapped it up.

/

Naomi Hyland throws her for a loop because she looks at the woman and sees meek eyes and a soft smile and knows, knows beyond the shadow of a doubt, that if this is the kind of Omega Red likes then she must be child's play, must be so far gone from sight, and Lizzie gnaws at her lip and hates that he fights to get his wife back, and the monster gnaws at her chest when she drives to a cabin sometime later to find out all the secrets the bees never countered and coveted.

"Nobody can make a woman feel like the center of his world the way Raymond Reddington can. He wants something from you. It's a game, it's a—

Lizzie never manages to tell Naomi that Raymond can't take anything from her if she has nothing left to give.

/

But she has her dignity left to give, don't you know. She has her dignity and everything that's holy when she finds that he's looking for his daughter, that he's been tirelessly searching, and something digs in her gut and the Omega snaps in indignation at the lack of attention, and this is silly, this is so silly, and Red calls her jealous and she almost growls aloud, almost tears across the room and rips open his shirt and—

But she doesn't.

"I am not jealous," she spits, speaking it like a truth.

She's not jealous, actually. Jealous is a base emotion.

She's _possessive. _

And that makes all the difference, why the sun never sees the moon, why the stars are kept apart each night.

/

"Everybody expects you two to bond," Agent Navabi coughs, blood bubbling to her lips. "It's all the gossip at the water cooler, you know."

"Do you think Raymond Reddington is the kind of man that would bond with a federal agent?"

It's said with a trace of humor behind her quivering lips.

"I think," Samar murmurs, "that he is a man that would watch the whole forest burn to protect the home of the woman he loves."

"And you, Elizabeth Keen," Samir takes Liz's hot face in trembling hands. "You are not just anybody. You are his—

Samir starts coughing again before she can finish. Instinctually, Lizzie holds the woman tighter, and thinks about the baby that will save them both.

/

Hearing Red call her _Elizabeth _is on her short-list of things that make her knees straighten, make her breathing shallow. He says it like an Alpha, no nonsense, and seeing the look in his eyes when he deduces and hearing him say _disappointed, _and no. No, no, no.

Later, when he tells her love is being powerless, she looks at him and thinks _yes, yes, don't I know. _

"There's something wrong with me," Lizzie cries out, because it's too much, and it feels like she's given blood and there's something wrong, something so terrible wrong and she can feel it, she can sense the tectonic plates shifting when he hauls her up in his arms and his scent penetrates her nostrils and he smells like oak and metal and this, this is falling, this is need.

"There's nothing wrong with you," he kisses her forehead, her cheek.

"There's nothing wrong with you," he tells her, soothing her animalistic whimpers with the rock of their bodies in tandem, tides breaking over the shore, nature, nature, nature running its course.

They won't know it after, much after, but this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.

.

.

.

.

.

Two days later, Lizzie wakes up in a cold sweat.

/

The interior of the Post Office is unnaturally humid for December. After forgoing a winter coat, this is the best she could do: forty minutes later, and thanking her lucky stars Cooper isn't anywhere in sight. Nobody comments.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she mutters in Aram's direction, looking every bit as miserable as she feels. "Res wasn't coming in until a little later, right? I think I'm sick with the flu or something."

A strange look comes across his face.

Approximately three seconds after she says this, she's being _drug. _Samar's fingers dig into her arm, and Lizzie nearly yelps until Samar slaps a hand over Lizzie's mouth to quiet her and pulls her close and Lizzie flinches from the Alpha's scent like she's been struck, trembling and trying to gasp a startled response to the commotion. Sweat beads at her temple. Samar has pulled her into a side corridor. Empty, it seems.

"You shouldn't be here," the middle-eastern woman says tightly, as if she's resisting breathing.

"What?" Lizzie barks, trying to pull herself from the tight grip. Samar won't budge, brown eyes wide and pupil's blown. Lizzie's chest feels tight, and she can't help it, but something about the spicy tang of Alpha scent causes her to nerves to tingle in a dizzy hum, a buzzing drone.

"You need to go."

"I'm really not that sick. I'm running a—

"Liz," Samar whispers, body tensing, hair falling round her cheeks, as if talking comes as a great feat. "You're in no state to be at work. Can you make it to your car? Do I need to call you a cab? Do you have enough suppressants to—"

Her stomach convulses then, so intense that Lizzie's body bends over itself and she's suddenly staring at the ground, letting out a soft, distinctive moan.

Samar takes that as an answer.

"I'll call Reddington."

Liz clutches at her arm, effectively stopping her. "No! What's- why- why am I—"

But she never finishes the sentence, because from where she's positioned, Lizzie feels the exact moment slick trickles onto her leg. Fresh. Plenty.

"_Oh, God," _Liz says in disbelief, staring at the marbling of the floor, bound by a trance.

Shock.

_Horror. _

_/_

Although not privy to what Samar says to Red, the woman informs her that a ride will be at the Post Office in less than twenty minutes. Samar leaves her there in the empty hallway to make the call, yet manages to inform Aram, and before she knows it, Aram is leading her gently, so gently, into the closed office space she shares with Don. Lizzie says nothing, too occupied by the white-hot sensation in her belly, the dry of her mouth. Other coworkers don't pause, but she can smell every Alpha, within the miniscule distance. When she sees Red, she thinks, it will all be over with. When she _smells_ Red.

They find seats, and he keeps quiet, waits for her to meltdown, or spontaneously combust, or do whatever the hell Omegas actually do during these random periods of hormonal flux: pun intended. It's strange how the atmosphere of the closed room, away from other warm-bodied Alphas is better, but it also isn't, because here, in this dark little room, everything reeks of Donald. And generally, see, _generally _Don's scent consists of mint and sage and hearth, but now he smells too sickly sweet, too wrong. Something inside Lizzie rejects. Her Omega rejects.

At Lizzie's scrunched nose, the other Omega seems to understand.

"Is this the first time you've…." Aram trails off, eyes soft and excusatory.

Lizzie manages to incline her head in affirmation.

"Most Omegas have had a minimum of fifty cycles by thirty," he notes. "Me, I've had more than that. Everyone in my family has babies popping up like daisies, but luckily, because of the suppressants, I don't have a dozen ankle biters," he laughs, shrugging kindly.

Lizzie gazes on, numb. "I avoided the Bureau's suppressant policy because the doctors consider me barren."

"That's unfortunate. I am not entirely sure- I'm a hacker, not a medical professional- but often times, catalysts can trigger changes in cycle. Could it be that, with you, it's triggered you to…"

"What trauma?" Lizzie huffs, crossing her legs hard. Aram watches her movement, swallowing.

"You lost your Alpha, didn't you? Your husband?"

"No," Lizzie replies. "No, it wasn't like that. Tom's a Beta."

"Oh," Aram remembers, frowning, "right. So, that means you haven't been with—

He breaks off, flushing, ashamed. "Sorry, that's inappropriate."

"It's okay," Lizzie assures, offering a wobbly smile. "You're right."

There's a long, tedious lull in conversation.

Then, oh so quietly, she asks him, "Is it going to be…bad?"

"It depends upon whether or not you plan on riding it out yourself, or…"

"Being with someone," she ends for him, nodding to herself.

A shiver goes through her, then. She quakes with it, and bites down hard on her lip to keep from moaning or doing something equally as embarrassing in front of her coworker, Omega or not.

"Being with an _Alpha_," Aram corrects, interrupting her train of thought.

When the air kicks on, a gust of Don's scent wafts in Lizzie's direction, and this time she cannot help the moan of disgust that wheezes past her lips. She covers her mouth. "Alpha, huh?"

"It's because it's not Agent Ressler's scent you want," Aram goes, all logical.

The slick between her thighs abates at the disconcerting assault on her nose, at the very least.

"Tell me about it," Liz says darkly.

/

Seventeen minutes feels like a lifetime.

/

The sun is unnaturally stark. Rays fall in her eyes, make her squint, and that first breath of fresh air feels like spring even in the winter, birds spreading its wing mid-flight, fly, breathe, be.

"Lizzie," comes a voice, a gentle bate, and Lizzie focuses in sudden clarity, snaps to.

Red stares at her as if she's just done something unspeakable. Eyes wide. Mouth parted. And he stands by the car, the door open, and Samar has already gone back inside, left her to her fate. Lizzie stares right back.

"Red," she whispers—

No. _Whimpers. _

It's desperate, because she sees him and even if it was a few days ago she still remembers what his arms around her feel like, and even if she's thirty and is supposed to be fearless as a federal agent, she can't shake the taste of fear all metallic and binding in her mouth, can't shake the knowledge that she's flying blind with her hands tied behind her back, and he's here. He's her protector, her final resting place, and he's here. Right here.

And Lizzie _needs _as the sun is beating down on her head, Lizzie _needs._

He sees the anguish written across her face, responds to it.

He opens his arms to her, and she, well, she flies.

Lizzie flies, a storm with skin, into his arms.

Here's the part she didn't expect:

The way it feels like falling.

Liz is in his cage of limbs all of two seconds before she freezes, and he goes still, too. His face is buries in her hair and the brim of his hat is pressing lean into the tender give of her pale forehead, but he's got his eyes driving into hers, and Lizzie's got her mouth agape and she can feel his breath painting across her cheek, and he smells like something primal.

Red smells of instinct. Of soul deep, two thousand years of giving and taking, and Lizzie gasps and realizes she's surrounded by him and they're so close, and they're still standing there outside the Post Office, and Red realizes this at the same time, believe it or not. They could be judged, like this. And nobody has the right to judge them. Nobody.

So they crash apart all at once.

He herds her into the car first, slides in after.

Dembe keeps his head forward: doesn't say a word.

It's worse once the car starts moving, too little space again, but at least this time it's the right scent, the perfect scent. The only scent. Lizzie can't help it when she leans into his arm, and Red doesn't seem to mind, anyway. He drags the tips of his fingers over her shoulder, slinging an arm around her and pulling her close.

"I trust Agent Navabi fended off any wayward colleagues that caught the smell," Red whispers.

It's so strange to hear Raymond Reddington whisper. He's such a boisterous man, always emitting noise, and the sudden meekness, the hoarse drag directly into the crux of her ear, makes her squeeze her thighs together even as she's already shaking with unkempt desire, with want, with animalistic yearning that drives a hot knife into her gut. Her mind catches up with what he's saying.

"Is it that noticeable?" Lizzie inquires sheepishly.

The corner of his mouth quirks. He takes a strand of her hair and tucks it, and in the adoring motion, Lizzie's cheeks flame brighter.

"Lizzie, you're dripping all over the seats."

He says this the way Raymond Reddington says all things: without much finesse.

If possible, Lizzie blushes deeper. Yet, she doesn't move away from him. Lizzie knows this is basic instinct, to respond so naturally to his scent, to his care, to his petting. It's natural, and good, and right, and real, so Lizzie doesn't move away. But she does question.

"What do I do?"

It comes out as a whine. High-pitched. Pitiful.

Red sighs deeply, eye twitching. "You'll be staying with me for a few days, obviously. There's too much of a risk for you to be on your own. I have the things you'll need to take care of yourself on your own. I can have Dembe show them to you, and—

"You won't be there?"

It's funny, the way Red just _stops. _Eyes somehow growing stuck in one position, as if him being wrapped up in her, her practically in his lap, his fingers in her hair didn't mean he was anything more than a concerned friend. As if he never in a million years thought she would be so blunt about things, because it was his prerogative to spit it out on a plate, to let it spill out from beneath the Persian rug.

"Elizabeth," he pronounces her full name, and the Omega likes that, a rumbling in Lizzie's gut, and yes, yes, the seats of the car are getting dampened. "Do you have any idea what you're asking?"

All the blood leaves Lizzie's face, and suddenly, suddenly Lizzie thinks she might faint.

She shrinks deeper into his side, would do anything to curl up and forget the world and her current state of being. "No," she admits weakly.

"Red," she murmurs, eyes filling with hot tears. Her heart pounds.

"I've never done this before," Lizzie states for the record, voice cracking in two or three places. She nearly hyperventilates from the strain. "I'm scared, and I don't want to be alone."

Looks up, meeting his eyes, digging her nails into his lapel.

"Red, _please _don't leave me all alone."

(She doesn't mean to be like this, okay? It's just too much. Too much.)

Lizzie bursts into tears.

/

She doesn't remember much for the rest of the car ride, save him holding her and rocking her and telling her all the reassurances in her ear; for her, all for her. Next thing Lizzie knows, he's folding her up knees to chest and hoisting her with a heave from the car, carrying her the distance to the threshold, inside. Eventually, the blur of her vision recedes, and the sobs become faint coughs.

He never stops touching her.

(That's the last she'll see of Dembe for days.)

/

There's a split second before everything changes. Calm before thunder, Sam used to say.

Red deposits her in the ground floor master suite, and it takes Lizzie a moment to grasp that it's his bedroom. Everything smells like him, in the house. Dembe is so trace, so minute, because Red is so overpowering, so deliciously concrete. She shakes and shakes, but the bed is soft beneath her, and Red looks down at her in concentration. Then, he stalks away.

She watches him take off hat, his coat. Come back.

She realizes she forgot her own coat at the Post Office, and she doesn't have the will to care.

All there is, is him.

Him, and the way he looks at her, and goes, "Lizzie, you have to be sure, sweetheart."

"I am," she responds, and she can't help the way it sounds like she's begging.

She might be.

"I'm sure," she breathes in, staring down at the wet, dark spot of her slacks, and then back up at him. Around the room, at the mess of things, at him again. He watches her for a long time before going, off beat, but in tune—

"Okay."

And then Lizzie's world shifts, because Red leans down.

Gives her a kiss.

/

A big kiss.

A big, chaste kiss on the lips.

Red stares down at Lizzie, all splayed out on the bed. The Alpha and the Omega, tale as old as time, but instead of whips and chains, nasty and torrid, Red takes a step back. "I'm going to run you a bath," he tells her.

Of all things, this is what manages to snap Lizzie out of her haze.

She narrows her eyes at him, hisses the word, all drawn out, "What?"

Red unbuttons his shirt while he talks fluidly, as if the dramatics of the situation have dissipated. It's the Alpha in him that lays it all out, makes it clear.

"I am ordering food as we speak, and while we are waiting, I am going to give you a bath. What would you like? Pizza? Chinese? Something high in calories, most definitely."

"Red—I—I can't—why?"

He turns around, his expression vague. "Why, what? Why are we eating? I'm hungry."

Lizzie's throat lumps at the thought of waiting, of waiting for—

"And you need sustenance," he adds lightly, striding over and helping her to her feet, pulling her in. He holds her to his chest, comforting, and Lizzie relaxes immediately. Her stomach bubbles, bordering on painful. Red's eyes are mossy and concerned. "I won't have you overtiring yourself, Lizzie. Do you hear me?"

The Omega _does _like this. The doting, the—

"Why do I need to bathe?" Lizzie's rationality wins out, jutting out her chin to the Alpha in confidence, even despite the millions of hummingbirds buzzing in her gut, the slick between her thighs. Red rocks back on his heels.

Grips her arms tightly.

Smiles wanly.

"Lizzie," Red mutters, and this time it's truly all Alpha. His eyes flash.

"I've held my tongue since the moment I met you, but those loathsome suppressants you wear like they're Chanel No. 5 positively _reek." _

His gaze dances, then. "But I can still smell _you_."

Then, Red slides his hand from her arm down, down to her hip, across the front of her, thumbs up the ridge of her pants, slides inside, and Lizzie meets his eyes when he dips his fingers inside her panties, taps along her clit all before—

He tears out of her pants and she gasps, falling forward and letting him support her even as he unceremoniously plops his fingers inside his mouth and groans loud and lean, a groan that is all Alpha and makes her whine and buck her hips along his thigh in some attempt at friction, yes, please, more—

"Delicious," he grins at her, that tell-tale dig.

Lizzie would've stumbled backwards, fallen to the ground, if he hadn't caught her again.

He's always catching her, you know.

Sometimes things that aren't supposed to happen, _happen._

"And Lizzie? When I'm through knotting that delicious pussy, you'll never be able to convince yourself you're anything but an Omega again."

He strokes her cheek, something wild and untamed lighting the fire between them. "As long as I'm your Alpha, they'll be no more smelling like a fucking Beta."

.

.

.

.

.

tbc.

* * *

><p><em>AN- If this is well received, I do intend on continuing this universe and adding a sequel that's actual smut. But, you know. *laughs nervously* I'm not sure if I'm going to be getting pitch forks or warms hugs for this. Regardless, reviews and critique are much appreciated. _


	2. AN

**Author's Note:**

**Due to an overwhelmingly positive response to this piece, I have written the sequel, "The Beast You've Made of Me", and posted it! If you want, go check that out! A HUGE thanks to all my lovely reviewers on this story thus far. I am definitely considering writing more for this universe than I'd originally planned. Your compliments have made this young writer's day!**

**Over and out.**


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